But as Proverbs 16, five speaks primarily of pride, let's think
about that. Pride seems to me in the scripture
to be what I would call the mother sin. If God's chief attribute
is holiness, and I believe that's right, His love is holy. His grace is holy. His law is
holy. His wrath is holy. All of his
other attributes, I don't even know how to say
it, but they are subject, I guess you would say, I don't know any
other way to say it, to his holiness. They're included in his holiness. If that's right, and I believe
it is, then our chief attribute is pride. That's our chief attribute. What does that mean? Well, what
is sin? What is sin? It's rebellious disobedience
to God. It's doing that which is not
according to God's law, God's truth. And why do we do that? The reason we do that, the reason
we do all of that is pride. That's where it comes from. The
very act of sin is to presume to be God yourself. In other
words, God says, thou shalt and thou shalt not. And then we say,
no, we will and we won't. You're usurping the very, it's
high treason against the God of heaven. That's what it is. It's to presume to be God. Listen
to the words of Satan again. Just listen to this. This is
Satan in a description of when he fell from heaven. Isaiah 14,
12, how art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the
morning? How art thou cut down to the
ground, which didst weaken the nations? For, because thou hast
said in thine heart, I will ascend, I will rise, I will be exalted,
I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars
of God. I will sit also upon the mount
of the congregation in the sides of the north. I will ascend above
the heights of the clouds. I will be like the most high.
Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the
pit." But you see the attitude of the heart of Satan, who is
the father of lies. When God said, thou shalt, and
thou shalt not, there is either submission to his will, which
is humility, it's bowing, it's submitting to his law in obedience,
or there is proud rebellion that says, I'll do as I please. That's
what we had in the garden. I'll do as I please. You remember
what Satan said to Adam? That got his attention and turned
everything on its head, thou shalt be as God's. You'll get
to decide what's right. You won't have to listen to what
God says is right and what God says is wrong. You can decide
that for yourself. That sounded pretty good, didn't
it? It still does until God has mercy on you and shows you who
God is. Every sin that man commits says
what Satan did. I will, I will, I will. When a man kills somebody, thou
shalt not kill. What is that? It's lifting yourself
up to the place of God. God said in Deuteronomy 32, 39,
see now that I, even I am he, and key words here, I'd have
you turn there, but we're gonna be short on time, but listen
to the key words, and there is no God with me. Listen, see now
that I, even I am he, and there's no God with me. I kill and I
make alive. Now, if there was another God,
then he might kill and make alive too, but there's not any God
with me. It's me, and I'm the one that kills, and I'm the one
that makes alive. So when you kill, when you murder,
and you know from the Beatitudes that you can do that in your
heart just as well as with a knife or a gun. You're taking the place of God
and you're doing it willfully. You know you're doing that. When you kill in anger and sin,
you're saying there is another God and I'll decide who lives or dies.
I'll make that decision. Stealing. Thou shalt not steal. What is that? What is stealing?
God is the one who gives all things, isn't he? Listen to Deuteronomy
8, 11 through 20. Turn over there with me, because
I've got to turn there anyway. So we'll give you a little bit
of time to turn there. Deuteronomy 8, 11 through 20. And we probably will go a little
bit past our time this morning. Deuteronomy 8, 11 through 20. Beware that thou forget not the
Lord thy God in not keeping his commandments and his judgments
and his statutes which I command thee this day. Lest when thou
hast eaten and are full and has built goodly houses and dwelt
therein, and when thy herds and thy flocks multiplied and thy
silver and thy gold is multiplied and all that thou hast is multiplied,
then thine heart be lifted up You see that? You're hard to
be lifted up. And thou forget the Lord thy
God, you're gonna forget who God is. You're gonna think it's
you. And you'll be wrong. And I will too. Which brought
thee forth out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage,
who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness wherein
were fiery serpents and scorpions and drought where there was no
water. Who brought thee forth water out of the rock of Flint?
And that rock was Christ. who fed thee in the wilderness
with manna, and he said, I'm that bread, I'm the bread which
came. Now Moses didn't give you that bread, my father did, and
I am that bread. Which thy fathers knew not that
he might humble thee, that he might bring you down where you
belong. You see that? That he might show you that you
live because of him. And that he might prove thee
to do thee good at thy latter end. And thou say in thine heart,
when you forget God, when you start thinking you're God and
he's not, you'll say my power and the might of mine hand hath
gotten me this wealth. But thou shalt remember the Lord
thy God, for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth. that he may establish his covenant,
which he swear unto thy fathers, as it is this day. And it shall
be, if thou do it all, forget the Lord thy God, and walk after
other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against
you. You'll surely perish, as the nations which the Lord destroyeth
before your face, so shall you perish, because you would not
be obedient. So it's God that gives everybody
everything they have. And when you steal something
from somebody else, you're saying, I'll determine who gets what. Even without stealing anything,
as this passage declares, you can still lift yourself up as
God. And the very things that you've
received from his hand, you can say, look what I did. We're gonna
read about somebody that did that in a minute. But to steal,
you see how that applies here to steal something from somebody.
Thou shalt not steal. Why? Because you're not God.
God gives and God takes as he pleases. You don't. It's really that simple, isn't
it? When you steal, what you're saying is everything's mine and
I'll take it if I want to. Even as little babies, what do
we do? We say, mine, but it's not. It's his or hers. My toys are mine and your toys
are mine. Because we're little gods, even when we're born. And God says there's no God beside
me. God says it's mine. Haggai 2.8, the silver's mine,
the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts. The cattle on a thousand
hills is his. The earth is the Lord's in the
fullness thereof. Adultery, what is that? That's a proud defiance of God's
ordained institution of marriage, which is Christ and his church.
What does all this have to do with Christ? Everything. Read
Psalm 2 again. You're going to bow to God's
king sooner or later, one way or the other. You're going to
kiss the son. You're going to kiss his feet
as that woman did, who was a great sinner. But that's adultery,
the same thing. It's to take that which does
not belong to you. It's pride. Remember David's
thoughts? We won't turn to 2 Samuel 11, but remember it says David
was walking on the roof of the king's house. Everybody knows
David's king. Why does it say he was walking
on the roof of the king's house? Because this shows you what's
going on here. He's the king and he thought
in his heart, I'll take what I want. And he sent messengers
to take. And it says he took her. He sent
messengers and took her. The audacity of that. And remember Nathan's story to
him, it exposes what this was. And does that story remind you
of anything? We talked about the garden, already
the Garden of Eden. Does that story of the rich man
who had everything, he had a whole field full of sheep and lambs.
and cows and everything. He had a visitor come and he
took his neighbor's little ewe lamb, that little ewe lamb that
it says he held in his arms and fed it like it was his own child. But this man had everything.
He didn't need that, but he took it because he could. That's us
in the garden. rich beyond description. God gave us everything. And we
had to have the one thing that was forbidden. Why? Not because
it was better than what we had, but because we want to be God,
that's why. God put us in paradise and that
wasn't enough. It's never enough because we're
God in our own hearts. Nothing shall be forbidden us.
That's the attitude of man. What's lying when you tell a
lie? Think of the audacity of Satan
in the garden asking this question, have God said, have God said? Yes, he did. He sure did. But what a question. And when
we tell a lie, we're doing, The same thing, when God says something,
it's true, just because he said it. The truth is not something
that God has to conform to. He said, I am the truth. That's what we presume when we
tell lies and expect people to believe them. We're the truth,
whatever we say. Have you ever heard that expression,
your truth? or you've just gotta live your truth. I've just gotta
live my truth. You don't have a truth. Yea,
let God be true and every one of us a bunch of liars. You don't
have a truth. All of this is why salvation
is a submission. It's a bowing. Romans 10.1, brethren,
my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they
might be saved. That's what we're talking about
here, salvation. For I bear them record that they
have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge for they being ignorant
of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own
righteousness. You should be as God's determining
good and evil. You'll call evil good and good
evil. You'll do stupid religious stuff
and say that's good works. For they being ignorant of God's
righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness
have not submitted. That word means to be subject,
to submit to one's control. That's our problem, you see. They have not submitted themselves
unto the righteousness of God. What's that? For Christ is the
goal, the purpose of the law, for righteousness to everyone
that believeth. And he's the termination of the
law. He's the end of you keeping the law for righteousness. If
you ever meet him, you won't do that anymore. You'll say,
there's my righteousness. The Son of God is my righteousness. Paul knew what he was writing
about there. When he wrote Romans 10, one through four, he knew
what he was writing about. Because boy, he was high and
mighty, wasn't he, until he met the Lord of glory. He was high
and mighty. He decided who would live and
who would die. And his truth was the truth. Look at all my
good works. I was a Hebrew of the Hebrews,
circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel. According
to the outward deeds of the law blameless in my own sight Going about to establish his
own righteousness and you know what he said when he met the
Lord Lord, what would you have me do? And when the Lord told
him, you know what he said after that? In that same context where
he talked about his religious heritage and how good he was,
he said, everything I am, everything I have, and everything I've done
is dung that I may win Christ and be found in him, not having
my own righteousness, but his. He knew something about submitting
to Christ, the righteousness of God. he knew something about it because
the Lord knocked him off of his horse and put him in the dust,
blinded him, and said, is it hard for you to kick against
the goads? That word goads, it's pricks
in the King James, it's go, is it hard for you to kick against
the goads? That means an iron goad for prodding
oxen and horses and other beasts of burden. God jabbed him like a wild ass's
coat and brought him down into the dust, blind and miserable
and helpless. He said, Lord, what do you want
me to do? That's salvation. That's salvation. And kicking against the goads,
if you look that up in Strong's Concordance, not only will it
give you the definition of what a goad is, which is just humiliating,
isn't it? Can you imagine somebody prodding
you with a goad like you're an animal? Till you're crawling
around on the ground trying to get away and he's prodding, that's
what God did. And Paul's praising him for it right now. He's praising
his holy name for it right now. And we will too. But also that kicking against
the goads, that phrase was a proverb in that day. It was a saying
that was common. And you know what it meant? To
kick against the goads was to offer vain and perilous or ruinous
resistance. Lord, what would you have me
do? No more kicking. So vain, proud, I will be God
man needs to be saved. And that means God has to break
you. That's what it means. Whether he falls on you or you
fall on him, there's a breaking either way. Matthew 21, 44, whosoever
shall fall on this stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever
it shall fall, it will ground him to powder. You don't want
that. You want by God's grace for him to bring you. You can't
come to him unless the father draws you to him and causes you
to fall upon the rock of ages. You're gonna be broken now, but
you'll be saved. You'll be saved. Remember Nebuchadnezzar? We got one minute and we gotta
talk about this. Just jot this down. It's Daniel 4, 30 through
37. He walked around his kingdom
and said, look what I've done. Look at this great kingdom that
I've built. And it was prophesied to him,
now the Lord's gonna bring you down. The Lord had already told
him through his prophet, you're gonna be cast out into the field
and you're gonna become like a wild beast. His fingernails
grew out like claws and his hair like bird's feathers. And he
crawled around in the fields like an animal. God just showed
him what he was already. That's what we are without God's
grace. And as the words were coming
out of his mouth, it says there in Daniel 4, 30 through 37, as
he was saying, look at this great kingdom that I've built for the
glory of my majesty. That's what he said. As the words
were coming out of his mouth, God did what he said he was going
to do. He brought him down, showed him what he was. And then after
a while, the Lord gave him his understanding back. And he said, now I extol the
most high God, the king of heaven, the king of everything. And he
said this, I've learned something. Those that walk in pride, he
knows how to bring them down. He knows how to do it. And thank
God he does. And as our text says, it doesn't
matter who agrees with you in your pride and rebellion against
God. It doesn't matter how many they are. They'll march hand
in hand, it says. And they do. They'll march hand
in hand. Doesn't matter, it says in our
text. Doesn't make any difference how many there are or how united
they are in their rebellion against God. Let God be true. And how
many of them liars? Every one of them. It doesn't
matter how many there are. the masses of religion. What
is it but pride and rebellion that has man making his own way
of salvation? Christ said, I am the way, but
religion doesn't like God's way. The Lord who said, I am the way,
they don't like him. They can't stand him. They're
still crucifying him in their hearts, so we'll make our own
way, a new road to heaven, a Roman road. Have you ever heard of
that one? where you can just repeat some things after somebody
and he'll declare you saved. We'll do it that way. We'll declare
a man saved for coming to a man-made altar and repeating a few pre-written
heartless words. We'll establish our own righteousness
by a system of works that everyone may abide by. Just come to church
and pay your tithe and say your prayers. and your good will outweigh
your bad. You don't have any good, and
I don't either. Otherwise, unless we do that,
we'd have to bow to God's son. We'd have to confess that we
have no righteousness of our own, that all we do is filthy
rags, the best that we do is filthy rags. All of our righteousnesses
are filthy rags, and that man in his best state is altogether
vanity. And we'd have to believe on the
Son of God and own Him as all of our righteousness before God
and cry, God, be merciful to me. I'm a wretched sinner. My
only hope is mercy. And we come to the mercy seat
and cry for mercy. There's only one place to even
ask for mercy from God, and that's at the feet of Christ. rather than come before him with
our almsgiving and our fasting as the Pharisee did. Remember that? In fact, I don't
think there's any better exposition of our text this morning in Proverbs
than this passage in Luke 18, 10. Two men went up into the
temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a Republican. The
Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee
that I am not as other men are. They're extortioners and unjust
and adulterers, or even as this publican, I fast twice in the
week. I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican standing
afar off would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven,
but smote upon his breast saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And then the Lord Jesus Christ,
makes an assessment of that scene. I tell you, this man, the man
who cried for mercy, went down to his house justified rather
than the other. Why? For everyone that exalteth
himself shall be abased. In other words, you go into hell
because if you're not justified in the sight of God, what are
you? Guilty. And he that humbleth himself
He that falls on his face before the Son of God and says, have
mercy on me. Let that precious blood be my
propitiation, my sin offering. God says, I'll raise you up.
I'll raise you up. And I could talk to you a long
time. Let me say this one last thing. I could talk to you a
long time about how in our daily lives, we should display humility. and meekness and not be proud
and selfish and always have to have our way about things. And
that's a good thing to say, but you know how I've got to say
that the way I just did? Proud sinners are not humbled
by somebody telling them how bad pride is. You're gonna have
to see Christ, aren't you? You're gonna have to see the
Son of God lifted up You're gonna have to say with Job, I've heard
of you by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eyes seeth
thee, and I abhor myself, and I repent in dust and ashes. I'm
sorry for what I am. If we can just remember, our
Lord said, do this in remembrance of me. Just remember how that
our Lord, who thought it not robbery to be equal with God,
made himself of no reputation, and became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross. if we can remember what it took,
what he did to rescue us. Remember the price that had to
be paid to bring me to his feet. Remember the pit from whence
he delivered us. Remember how that you have nothing
that you did not receive. And so why would we glory as
if we hadn't received it? Sinners are not humbled by preaching
on humility. Sinners bow at the cross. They
bow at the feet of the son of God. And so we must, and may
we ever preach him. And may we all say in our hearts,
in every situation, in all of our dealings with one another,
say this, Lord, what would you have me do? Not what would he
do? That's foolish. Lord, what would
you have me do? What would you have me do? May he give us grace. to see him as he is and ourselves
as we are and praise him forever.